Tag Archives: Christ

All my life I’ve hated waking up. Something about being very nice and warm and accepted under the covers and the room being cold and the day foreboding and starting in-any-and-every case too early. Why not just stay asleep?

The unknown is strange and foreign, the best place is where we already are.

I sound like a poster-child for the agrarian movement with that last sentence. Stay rooted! Wrap yourself up in the comforter of contentment! Be Ok with Bed.

But that’s not where this post is going. You see, I always hated getting up in the morning until about seven months ago. Seven months ago my mornings changed—and with them each subsequent day.

Seven months ago I woke up the morning after my wedding and found to my utter and almost uncontainable delight that I wasn’t alone. And then, as the Someone whom I was with slowly woke and realized that he wasn’t alone either—he had me—suddenly our morning turned into rejoicing.

You’re still here. With me. My love.

Rejoice.

Suddenly waking up became one of my favorite things—and falling asleep often delayed simply for the delight of being consciously in my beloved’s company.

Toe-touch. Are you still awake?

Hand-in-hand. I love you.

Kiss. We should probably go to sleep now.

One last hug. Ok.

Roll-over. Good morning.

How could I have known? That what I hated most about the first few moments of the day was not the loss of sleep but the fear of being awake. There I’d lay: alone in bed, dreading another day. I remember particularly depressed times in my life when I would delay going to sleep for as long as possible not because being awake was all that fun—but because waking up to face the next day was so overwhelmingly daunting. Sometimes the sheer knowledge of my waking consciousness in the first few moments of the day was enough to spark tears. Burying myself in the sleep and warmth of the covers was in a very real way a denial of the day. And no, I’m not saying that there aren’t still days when I truly am incredibly tired—or facing a day full of challenge—but I am saying that my dread of the morning has been wonderfully replaced by a joy in what the mornings bring.

You, my sweetest man. I look forward to the sleepy smile. The strong arms wrapping around and drawing me close. The struggle together to leave the wonderful comfort and start the day—eager for the work week to be done or the weekend together to begin. Love makes the difference.

Isn’t it strange that when love shines on even such a small corner of our lives morning turns to gladness? And isn’t that what Christ is at work at within us? Shining the light of the gospel on our marriages, our children, or home, our work, our passions and ambitions saying: Love makes the difference.

But we are slow to wake up, aren’t we? We’d rather cling to darkness—known and familiar.

And maybe this is just another way we’re being prepared for heaven. We’re still learning what it means to love as we are loved. For I imagine now that arriving in Heaven will be a bit like the moment I realized I no longer feared mornings. Sunlight, warm, accepted, with our Beloved.All our striving will be over. We’ll wake up and realize, “This! This is love.” We will walk in the glory of His Truth—in the Light of the Son—and we’ll realize the darkness is gone, and there is nothing left to fear.

…

Endnote: I feel compelled to add a caveat. I am quite sure that not everyone’s dislike of mornings drastically evaporates once married. My husband’s mornings have, in his words, gotten “much worse” since he now has the added trial of leaving ME ever morning to go to work—and leaving me he does not like at all.

Martin Luther, prior to wedding his worthy wife Kate, once said that he remained unmarried, “not because I am a sexless log or stone but because daily I expect death as a heretic.” Such unequivocal honesty is astonishing in today’s age because he presumes on a presently much eschewed reality: that it is possible to not be a sexless stone while still a godly man (or woman) yet unmarried.

I want to talk today about the Cult of Ignorance which has marched over conservative Christendom, taking premarital sexuality under lock, stock, and key. As a perhaps natural reaction to the hypersexualization of our culture (with its graphic and violent media, objectification of both men and women, and sex ripped from its sacrificial, marital, and procreative context), far too many parents (and particularly their daughters) have opted for the idealization (and idolization) of childhood innocence.

What am I referring to? I am not referring to innocence as in guiltlessness (not even children have that), but rather the ignorance of children when it comes to both the evil of the world and their own sexuality. While we all have a natural nostalgia for the days of our youth, (when our hearts were full of unblighted hope and wholeness), Christendom has gone far beyond nostalgia to the point of prolonging and elevating the ignorant mind. We cloak this phenomenon in terms of “innocence,” as if children were without sin natures and if kept ignorant of the facts of life would remain so indefinitely.

I think of Christian college students who have no conception of broken families (even the brokenness of their own classmates), the chilly silence when it comes to depression, abuse, and addiction, and most particularly I think of the strange pressure put on young ladies to be sexually asleep for the decade(s) until marriage. The sad part is, while these beautiful young women can be lulled into a sexual sleep through a steady stream of negative messages, they can not just snap out of that sleep once married, when suddenly they need to desire their husbands. While Luther could acknowledge that celibacy is a perfectly good thing for the “sexless stone” who has the gift of singleness, today many who aren’t even remotely “burning with passion” are still marching to the alter.

Again, as a subculture, we have idolized ignorance, as if “not knowing” was a virtue in itself. When it comes to sex, the bible is clear on two points: that we are to be chaste until marriage and free from lust. Two difficult tasks, but clear ones. Yet somehow these mandates have been expanded within Christian culture to a sort of sexual cluelessness. A friend once told me that the majority of her sex education came from Shakespeare. Hah! But for many, sexual desire comes naturally with teenage hormones. How are young women to wade the waters of sexual purity, complete with bodies coursing full of desire, when their community reacts with a horrified hush and treats such feelings as only belonging to men? (Men whom Christendom, oddly, never expects to be “unawakened.”)

I have girlfriends, too, who if they have any desire have never so much as whispered it. Or, it is at least veiled in vague terms and spiritual niceties (read: “He has fine eyes and I think very highly of him. We’d make great prayer buddies.”). Many of my female friends haven’t the foggiest idea of how their own reproductive system works (just imagine what dangers that puts them in). Again, we have equated ignorance with purity. As if, maybe, if you don’t know any details—or have never felt your body react to the opposite sex—you are somehow more pure or of a higher moral fiber.

In contrast, I want to share with you an incident which happened shortly after I’d gotten married. For several months I had struggled to relate with the secular, singles’ culture of my workplace. Then I got hitched—and all my unfulfilled desire found glorious resting place in my husband’s arms. Now, at least, I had sex in common with my co-workers! Or so I thought.

But one day I walked into the office the morning after an office-party. The lights were off in the cubical-complex next to the lobby, (just about everyone had a hangover). A group of women were huddled around each other, talking in low tones and giggling over their iPhones. As I joined the group, I caught the undertones of a conversation on who-slept-with-who in their drunken state the night before and oh-look! photos. I wandered off, feeling like a child who stumbled into an adult conversation, or had been sent to bed early.

And then it clicked. I had expected to relate with them! After all, I knew how sex was done, and how to do it well! But it didn’t make any difference. Because it wasn’t about knowledge—it wasn’t even about experience—it was about purity. I had expected that sexual knowledge—loss of ignorance—would make me less pure. But it hadn’t! Because purity isn’t about ignorance—it is a way of life, a kind of Being in Christ. I was just as pure as before marriage, and would go on being pure (God keep me) even when I am old and have a dozen grandchildren.

And isn’t this the beauty of Christ? That in Him, all things are pure and beautiful? After all, was He, in the sense I have described, ignorant? Guiltless, yes! Pure, absolutely! But lacking knowledge? As Lord of all Creation, there is no beautiful thing, nor horror of evil, which He does not see. Furthermore, Jesus Himself on earth knew so much evil first hand: the loneliness of the outcasts, the brokenness of the prostitute, the injustice and hypocrisy of the religious leaders. He ate with them. He put His hands into their wounds, on their leprous and lecherous heads, let them kiss his feet, and with His own suffering won them for Himself.

If we are to be like Christ, there is no place for ignorance. Let children grow in the bubble-wrap of “innocent” happiness if need be, but we do nobody, least of all the unbeliever, any favors by being barricaded, naive adults.

So whether you are in your teens feeling the hot rushes of sexual awakening—or the crushed and world-weary traveller first learning of Christ—know that it is not what you have done or experienced which constitutes your purity but rather the purity of the Holy One whom you know! In Him your past is renewed, and in Him our experiences find their proper place—whether that be laboring alongside the broken, bringing light to dark places, experiencing grief, or your very first kiss from your beloved, He orders all things.

Let us not then disorderly value the ignorance of our childhood, but know that as we grow in Knowledge, in Christ we also grow in Beauty and Truth.

How did it all happen? I feel like Dante—just out of Purgatory, fresh on the shores of Eden—old and yet new, weary and yet fresh as a new day.

My college career is over. I just wrote my last exam: a sixteen page blue-book essay mapping the arch of loves dis/ordered through Homer, Virgil, Sophocles, divine love in Augustine, and redeeming love in Dante.

I cried. It was a good exam to go out on. For in it I wrote of loves excessive, loves distorted, and love made new and beautiful by the love of Christ. Story of our lives.

Let’s face it, it could have been a calc exam. But instead I got to tell of how “our hearts are restless until they rests in you” (Augustine, 3), and how “endless grace / has arms of generous goodness thrown so wide / they take in all who turn to them” (Dante, 3.121-3).

In a few days I’ll walk an aisle and toss a cap. In a few months I’ll walk another aisle and marry my wonderful fiancé. And it’s all love.

It was love that made and grew me, love which brought me here. Love which every day remakes me and casts away my fear.

If I could single out one great lesson that God’s been teaching me over and over through these last four years—it’s the supremacy of love in our lives. Love which finds its right place in Christ’s love for us. Love which suffers, love which gives, love which hopes, and endures, and transforms, and makes new.

And so I am thankful. That through this end I am learning endless beginning. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The words over the car-stereo speakers hung ripe with tears in my ears. Audrey Assad over Ohio fields. I was driving to DC for break with three other college girls when suddenly the sleepiness that had been conquering me slipped away—and I listened.

From the love of my own comfortFrom the fear of having nothingFrom a life of worldly passionsDeliver me O God

In less than two months college will be behind me. I’ll be on to the world beyond. I’d always thought that when I graduated college I’d have finally arrived. That four years of classes and deadlines, relationships and missteps would have refined me into something, well, nearer perfection. I would finally be the selfless, brave-hearted Christ-follower I’m supposed to be.

From the need to be understoodFrom the need to be acceptedFrom the fear of being lonelyDeliver me O GodDeliver me O God

Instead I find myself only more keenly aware of my own pride, bitterness, and fear. I see every opportunity missed, every anxious hour, the malicious thoughts and thoughtless words.

Deliver me O GodDeliver me O God

As I search for jobs, interview and face over and over how little I control, and as I and the wonderful man in my life pray and seek wisdom in unfolding the next months and years, Audrey’s words strike the strings of my heart and send it heavenward.

From the fear of serving othersFrom the fear of death or trialFrom the fear of humilityDeliver me O GodDeliver me O God

Will the journey always be like this? If in coming to Christ our hearts of stone are exchanged for hearts of flesh—than every year I feel another chunk of the cold marble of my heart melting into aching, beating sinews. Life’s getting vulnerable. I’m not becoming more independent but learning more deeply my dependency. I am not stronger—only learning that all my strength is His.

And I shall not want, I shall not wantWhen I taste Your goodness I shall not want

Lord, deliver me from the fear of the unknown. Deliver me from self-sufficiency, deliver me from thanklessness. Deliver me from searching for what I already have in You.

No, I shall not want, I shall not wantWhen I taste Your goodness I shall not want

Well, people, I’m a shop-girl now. I sell clothes and work with women. I greet shoppers with a cheery smile and ring up their choice finds. I try my best to make their day—and usually, in succeeding, they make mine.

I’ve never had a real job before. I’ve baby-sat and chauffeured, tutored and been a Resident Assistant, (I even had a brief, colorful stint at a fragrance store before I realized my employer was a creep), but this is the first time I’ve worked for a company, complete with shifts, clocking in and out, and a thousand and one rules and regulations.

It’d been on the back of my mind over the winter that I should get a summer-job. Not, mind you, that I exactly wanted to. This past semester was exhausting—I needed the summer to recuperate. But money and experience would be nice… and besides—being lazy all summer is terrible for you! But before I had done anything about it, God kinda just made it happen.

I was shopping with my Mom over Spring Break, ‘took her to one of my favorite stores and spent a good hour ferrying clothes back and forth to her in the dressing room. I must have moved with the ease and familiarity I felt in this long-frequented store, because soon women were asking me to do things for them, mistaking me for an employee (several of which I spoke with at one time or another—whether it was by small-talk outside the dressing rooms or reeling in a clerk to get a shirt off a manikin). The next thing I knew, the middle aged women behind the counter told me, “You really should apply here.”

It made so much sense. I spoke with the acting manager—who assured me they always needed people (even if I came back for holidays from college), and who gave me the direct store address (while a younger employee added her input, “Yeah, you’d be good! You’re spunky!!!”)

Several phone-calls, two interviews, and three applications later (two went astray)–I had the job. (I’d tell you where but this is the internet and you might be a stalker who’d subsequently visit my store with a ridiculous ruse about black Bermuda shorts when really you have no such fashionable intentions.)

It’s been a month now and I have to say I’m really enjoying my job. It ended up being part-time, which I sheepishly admit I’m absurdly pleased about. It’s given me the job I wanted while affording me the leisure time to spend on friends and family (and books! I’ve already gotten through five since being home—reviews will come eventually). God knew what I needed.

It’s a humble job. I put clothes on hangers, fold and refold, endlessly straighten, and count out change. But I know that as a Christian I am called to glorify God in everything I say and do–and so I am called to be the best shop-girl I can possibly be.

I love seeing each customer as an opportunity—and as an individual. There they are, walking into your store—you have no idea what life they lead or what kind of day they’ve had. I know from experience that a surly clerk or thoughtless comment by a stranger can ruin an evening, change your mind about a company, or hurt even days later. But you have the chance in your few, short interactions to make their day better or worse–to shine light or add to their darkness.

I delight in winning over my customers with genuine joy and cheerfulness. I give sales-pitches like a tour-guide and try to make even sour, stone-faced madams (who obviously are NOT enjoying shopping) feel like I have sold them personalized chocolate. I’ve been told by women that I’ve made their day—or that they bought something simply because of my personality.

But I do worry that while I may bless my customers—I leave them more in love with me than with Christ. I don’t know how to change that, to in some way turn their compliments towards the Truth without spitting out some pithy, trite reply.

How will they know—after I’ve informed them of a special sale, or cheerfully said good-morning for the 90th time, or joked about a purchase despite my aching head and feet—that I do so not because I am some perpetually perfect, cheerful being (far from it!!!)—but because I’m taking my job seriously, my duty to my employer, and my desire to glorify God?

I was able to explain to my manger once about Christianity, the gospel, and the God who has died for me. I was feeling very unwell that day—the sheer emotion from the conversation was making me light-headed and dizzy so who knows what exactly I said. (I take comfort in Luke 12:11-12, when we’re told that the Spirit speaks for us in such times and elsewhere that His Word never returns void… because I was pretty foggy. If you think of me, pray for me and my coworkers, and that I’d have more such opportunities.)

In the meantime I struggle with not being a grump when I return to my family after an exhausting day of being completely on! I feel acute pity for working men—wrestling with the stress and pressures of work from 9-5 to return to an often lovingly-loud house. (People. Working makes the introvert want to crawl up in a little ball and sleep. or DIE. for at least twelve hours.)

But you never let a customer know what you feel. If it’s hot you comfort them with commiseration, if their coupon doesn’t work you apologize as if you yourself had made it expire. I make a thousand mistakes and apologize so often I think I should wear a name-tag saying so. I keep learning new rules. And I still haven’t been taught how to ring up a return purchase.

So I make up for it by smiling. And I scurry about my store with the industry of one who loves her job—and takes pride in making it flourish.

As Pionius was silent, hanging in torture, he was asked: “Will you sacrifice?” “No,” he answered. . . . “Why do you rush towards death?” he was asked. “I am not rushing towards death,” he answered, “but towards life.”

. . . .

The sentence was then read in Latin from a tablet: “Whereas Pionius has admitted that he is a Christian, we hereby sentence him to be burnt alive.”
Hastily he went to the amphitheater because of the zeal of his faith.